


Quaking Aspens

by Swirlingflight



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Blaseball IRM, Existential Horror, Eyes where eyes are really not expected, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Just a casual walk through the park, Mild Horror, Yellowstone Magic - Freeform, Yellowstone National Park
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:54:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26731708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Swirlingflight/pseuds/Swirlingflight
Summary: Dear diary,Today I saw some trees.
Kudos: 3





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've finally caught Blaseball fever, but my fascination is with the (collaborative) worldbuilding as much as anything of the game itself. 
> 
> With Yellowstone Magic's #magic-watch being renamed to #magic-diary, many of us are taking this siesta week to write microfictions based in the setting from the perspective of characters of it, be they named players or OCs. 
> 
> This ficlet was inspired by [this post](https://swirlingflight.tumblr.com/post/630482653401989120/redlipstickresurrected-quaking-aspens-populus) about the appearance of _Populus tremuloides_ , a tree called by various names, including _quaking aspens_.

* * *

Dear diary,

Today I traveled further into the parkpark than I've ever gone before, and I came across a grove of quaking aspens.

You know, the ones also called _Populus tremuloides_?

I'm pretty sure that's what they were. They had all the signs of it.

That whitish bark with little flecks and patterns of darker gray...

Those bright leaves, springlike in their yellow-greens, lit so beautifully in the sun...

And all those eyes, watching me.

I left the grove, but somehow it seems like there's more quaking aspens all through the woods, now.

Like the eyes are manifesting on other trees, the better to keep seeing me.

Or maybe, this is just the first time I've seen their eyes open.

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This ficlet was inspired by [this post](https://swirlingreblogs.tumblr.com/post/630566968133615616) of philosophizing about salmon migration, though it's not yet clear to me whether any salmon appear in this story. Thanks also to [studiousguy.com](https://studiousguy.com/aspen-tree-root-system/#:~:text=Quaking%20Aspen%20is%20the%20state,a%20distance%20of%2012%20inches.) for helpful information on quaking aspens that really helped inform the nature of the aspens here.

* * *

Dear diary,

Yesterday, I saw a post posing a series of questions about salmon migrations, set to beautiful illustrations.

Questions about what drives them to swim, questions of longing, of death, of fulfillment.

It included the phrase, "when the trees drink their bodies at last."

A beautiful phrase, that led me to a realization.

Today, under the unblinking gaze of the eyes in the bark, I dug under several aspens in the park.

I didn't have to dig deep.

The roots don't extend even a foot into the soil, too busy spreading out.

They're the same roots, too, the same colony, stretching further than I dare to explore alone.

Under each of them, the whitish bark gives way to whitish roots...

and then, to equally whitish bones.

Under each of these watchful aspens is a shallow grave.

The trees drinking the bones. 

Sprouting out of them.

As I write this, the eyes continue to watch me.

I wonder if they remember living those lives, if they archive the memories in their rings.

I wonder if they live even now, a collective mind in a collective - mostly stationary - form. 

Maybe, many years from now, we'll plant my bones here and find out.

* * *


End file.
